A blurred mind…
No, it wasn’t blurred. If anything, Lukas’ consciousness was sharper than it had ever been. The reason starving people became sensitive was because their nerves and senses had become sensitive. It was for a similar reason that people in ancient times fasted while meditating.
He came to understand the reason for Pale’s strength.
With her concentration, which had become extremely tense because of hunger, she could gain millions of times more experience than an ordinary person with just one swing of her sword.
However, the price of that was harsh.
Even a practitioner with sturdy willpower would not have been able to withstand even a fraction of the pain Lukas was currently experiencing. This was a level of pain that wouldn’t even allow you to go crazy.
However, even amid the torrent of agony that he couldn’t bear, there was a portion of Lukas’ reason that remained intact.
That independent reason was constantly assessing the level of pain his body was experiencing and contemplating exactly what hunger was.
Eventually, Lukas’ reason reached a conclusion. Or a definition.
—Hunger was erosion.Like a contagion of parasites who devoured every element that made up a person, grew bigger, and continued to spread.
Things like their reason, ideas, identity, morality, ethics…
The difference between humans and beasts is the ability to control their true nature. The same goes for the difference between beasts and monsters.
What was the difference between a mother who tried to breastfeed her child even when she could not endure her own hunger, and a mother who chose to boil and eat her children?
Whether their morality had been eroded by hunger or not.
The same was true for eating dirt covered weeds, chewing on maggot-infested corpses, or drinking muddy water.
If there was even a shred of reason left, no one would ever commit such acts.
‘…I see.’
Everything Pale had had been eroded.
It didn’t take long for everything that made up who she was from birth to be eaten. It was inevitable.
Lukas suddenly felt like crying.
Out of pity.
He felt sorry for the girl who had to endure all of this pain, which was too much to bear, by herself without knowing why.
Without knowing what crime she’d commit.
What the hell had she done wrong, for such a girl, who was no different from any ordinary person, to endure such pain on her own?
She would curse the world.
She would have no choice but to vomit blood while resenting God.
Lukas wanted to cry. He wanted to at least shed a tear for Pale.
However, like a spring that had long since dried, nothing came out.
* * *
“Auh, ak…”
Covered in blood, Lukas crawled on the ground.
His body was covered in scratches as if he had been mauled by an animal, and his blood-matted hair hung loosely as if it had been scattered.
As she looked at this man, who looked no different from an animal, Pale chewed on her lip.
“Why?”
“Hee, ah, auk…”
Instead of an answer, all she got in reply was a howl, so she asked again.
“Why are you doing this”
“Cough, cough… uh, ugh…”
“How can you not eat?”
Crunch.
Her clenched fist tightened.
Pale had said.
Even if Lukas created this artificial situation to try to emulate her pain, they were fundamentally different. They couldn’t help but be different.
Initially, she had made this remark to ridicule Lukas.
It was an expression of sarcasm, as if to say, ‘No matter how hard you try to understand me, it would ultimately be for nothing.
However, those words she’d uttered unthinkingly contained some truth.
That really was the case.
Lukas and Pale were different.
Not only was there a big difference in the situations they faced, there was also a difference in the way they responded to them.
‘He has a way out.’
She looked around.
Countless corpses could be seen laying in every direction.
What they looked like to Lukas now, Pale understood it painfully well.
They were no different from countless pieces of meat. The scent of the rotten corpses was probably more fragrant than that of meat roasting over a bonfire, and the blood that was infinitely close to turning black was no less appetising than juices from the highest quality meat.
However, Lukas didn’t even reach for a corpse. Even when acting as if his mind was about to break or had already broken.
He didn’t reach for the ‘countless things to eat’ around him.
He didn’t even look at them.
Pale… couldn’t do that.
She ate everything around her. She had chewed and swallowed things that were so disgusting and dirty that Lukas couldn’t even begin to imagine. It was so disgusting and ugly that even she herself could not bear it.
“Uah, ah, ah…”
His voice cut off.
From his throat came a sound more unpleasant than that of unlubricated metal pieces rubbing against each other.
How long had it been?
“…it’s been 1 year now.”
When Lukas had smiled, Pale thought that smile was just a bluff. She was shocked, but that was it, and her thoughts didn’t change even after seeing it. This was because Lukas continued to show an appearance so precarious that it wouldn’t be strange for him to break down at any moment.
However, the thread that seemed as if it would break at any moment had not yet broken. Like a candle that did not go out even in the face of a strong wind, Lukas persevered in the most precarious situation.
“…”
Pale realised that her heart was beating harder than ever before.
She wasn’t exactly sure why.
There was no way that she was beginning to have expectations, right?
Did she really think that this man would be able to understand everything about her? That he could be the King she was searching for? This trash who had accepted the power of a Ruler?
“…haha.”
She burst into laughter.
But Pale’s face was still distorted.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
Her refusal to yield soared.
The long awaited salvation was in arms reach, but itself of holding on to it, Pale snorted loudly.
It had been like that for a long time.
The sympathy sent by someone else only made Pale lock her feelings in a bottomless pit. Especially from a man who borrowed the power of a Ruler.
Whatever kind of life he thought she’d lived.
However he thought she had become the being she was now.
She didn’t need sympathy. That time was long past.
Instead, she only regarded the sympathy sent to her as an insult.
Thump.
Pale sat down.
Then, she spoke to Lukas, who probably couldn’t even hear her voice.
“Fine. Just for this moment, I will put aside the name of the Blue Knight for a while.”
There was no reply from the man who was moaning and groaning.
Pale continued coldly.
“After becoming the Blue Knight, my hunger weakened a lot. It hasn’t completely disappeared, but it has weakened enough for me to maintain my sense of self.”
“Huhu. That’s why I can’t give up this beggar-like position.”
“But I’m going to put it aside for a while. Then the hunger I’ve built up until now will pounce on me…”
Pale twisted the corners of her mouth, forcing a smile. Fear was visible in that smile.
After all, she was about to encounter the ‘real hunger’ that she had been avoiding for a long time once again.
…She didn’t want to do it. This was crazy.
But, still.
Pale stretched out a hand and pulled out the sword that had been stuck in the ground. Then, she held the blade with her bare hands and began to apply force.
Snap.
The pale blade, the Blue Knight’s sword, broke into two with a hollow sound.
“…!”
Then the hunger struck.
* * *
The moment she reunited with the pain one wouldn’t even miss as much as a fingernail, Pale wanted to run away immediately.
Unlike in the past, she had obtained a way out too.
Reassembling the broken sword would not be a difficult task for Pale.
However, she didn’t.
‘Now, we’re the same…!’
Pale also had a way out.
In other words, her situation had become equal to Lukas’.
Running away from here? That would be easy. However, she couldn’t.
She wasn’t sure about anything else, but at least she couldn’t lose to this man. She didn’t want to lose.
So she would endure.
She would grit her teeth until they broke, and endure it even if she had to die.
‘…’
The hunger surged.
Pale writhed in pain. She screamed. She shed tears.
And then she thought.
—It was more bearable… than she thought.
‘Why…?’
The person who was the most taken aback by that thought was none other than Pale herself.
Clearly, the hunger that poured in was as she imagined, no, it was greater and more terrible than she had imagined. This fact was undeniable just by looking at the way she was crawling on the ground and crying.
Nevertheless, she was able to endure it.
She wasn’t sure why, but she could do it.
Why?
Had she developed a resistance for hunger while acting as the Blue Knight of Famine?
Or, did it turn out that hunger wasn’t that big of a pain now that she’d become a transcendent being?
No.
It wasn’t such a petty reason.
There was something, something a little more, something fundamentally different…
—I hate losing.
“…!”
Pale shuddered.
─I don’t want to lose.
An inner voice.
The true feelings hidden beneath Pale’s reason.
─I’m not sure about anything else, but I at least don’t want to lose to this man.
Because she hated losing? That could be it.
However, it was different. There was only so much she could endure with just defiance. This was something Pale knew from her long experience.
A little deeper,
She listened to the sound her heart was making.
─…I’m not the only one like this.
As if struck by a hammer,
Her mind went blank.
─I’m not the only one feeling this pain right now.
…It seems.
The feeling of being the same that Lukas had mentioned the other day.
The statement that the being called ‘Pale’ could only love beings who had committed the same original sin.
The emotions Pale was experiencing at that moment were similar to that, but also completely different.
─This man is feeling the same thing as me. I’m not alone right now.
Lukas and Pale were different.
Not only was there a big difference in the situations they faced, there was also a difference in the way they responded to them.
However, they were similar.
At that moment, Pale, because there was a being called Lukas writhing on the ground in a place she could see—
Trickle.
Began to cry.
In an instant, it felt like her hunger had disappeared.
“…ah.”
Right.
What she wanted,
What she really wanted, was not a being who was guilty of the same crime. Nor was it someone who bore similar scars.
What she wanted was,
During painful days like this one. To have someone beside her. It was selfish, but… she wanted that person to experience the same pain as her, and understand.
She looked at Lukas.
“Was this your aim?”
Pale’s voice trembled slightly.
“…answer me. You, Lukas, is this what you wanted to show me?”
Lukas was still suffering on the ground, but his eyes were clear. Perhaps they had been like that from the beginning. Why hadn’t she realised?
Twitch.
His lips moved.
He was probably talking, but his voice didn’t come out. Because his voice was already gone.
However, Pale could still hear his voice just through his moving lips.
‘I was looking for [a person].’
“…where?”
‘Now, here.’
“…”
Gulp, she choked up.
Pale forced herself to speak.
“What do they look like?”
‘She has blue hair that’s messy but silky.’
“…”
‘She has an emaciated face, but her eyebrows are arched like a bad girl, and her eyes are as clear as the blue sky. She is probably like a tomboy who worries her parents.’
“…”
‘She causes incidents everywhere, but her surroundings are crowded with people. She’s a child that no one can dislike, a child who can’t be scolded because she will just smile and stick her tongue out and you will lose all your steam.’
Lukas bitterly said.
‘That should be the face she could have.’
“…”
‘Sorry.’
“What for?”
‘Because I have no tears left to shed for you.’
But after a while, Lukas smiled faintly.
‘You are even filling in for my tears as well.’
From the moment she first shed a tear, she couldn’t stop crying.
There was no sobbing, but Pale cried as if she was sobbing.
‘I thought you had lost every element that made up your existence.’
“That’s right, I…”
‘It’s not.’
“Huh?”
‘You put aside your position as Blue Knight. And you personally invited the hunger that you fear the most, something you could easily ignore. It was an irrational act that was highly emotional, but… it was cool.’
“Cool? Wasn’t it just a foolish mistake?”
‘In other words, it is your pride. That is also what I value the most.’
“Value… if you think that, then.”
‘Right. That is where my first steps began.’
Lukas got to his feet. His body, which had been covered in scars, became perfectly fine. In this state, he slowly walked towards Pale.
“People have good memories and bad memories.”
He spoke with an intact voice.
“But as time goes on, the boundaries separating those become increasingly more blurry. At that time, you will also be able to calmly accept memories that are terrible and unpleasant. It might take a long time, but maybe… there might come a day when you can reminisce about those times with a smile.”
Blinking, Pale looked at Lukas.
Things that she had never even imagined. Everything he’d said sounded like nonsense. It was unrealistic, and her mind refused to accept it.
“Will a day like that come…”
However, her voice came out as if on its own accord.
“…for me too?”
Without realising, she asked with desperation.
“Will there come a time when I can recall my most painful memories, smile bitterly, and talk as if they are nothing…?”
“I don’t know. No one knows.”
“…”
“However.”
Adding that, Lukas continued.
“If you can imagine even a small bit of that moment, if you can imagine a little bit of that future….”
Lukas stretched out his hand without finishing his sentence.
Despite being rejected time and again, he continued to reach out without flinching.
Maybe this was the greatest thing about Lukas.
His blue eyes pointed at Pale.
At that moment, Pale realised a minute fact.
—Now that I think about it, at least our eye colours are similar.
She stretched out her hand.
And this time, she finally took the rough hand that she once rejected.
Strongly, as if she would never let go again.
(2/2)
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